Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, 1st WTA and main favourite, has failed on Friday to qualify to the Singapore Championship semi-finals after being defeated by Ukrainian Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-4 in the last match of Group Red.
In another match on Friday, Caroline Garcia defeated Caroline Wozniacki 0-6, 6-3, 7-5 to top the group rankings. Second qualified is Wosniacki.
The semi-finals to be played on Saturday: Caroline Garcia vs. Karolina Pliskova and Caroline Wozniacki vs. Venus Williams.
With the results of group play in the books, only No.3 Karolina Pliskova can overtake Simona Halep for the year-end No.1 ranking. Halep will become the 13th year-end No.1 in WTA rankings history unless Pliskova wins the Singapore title.